Air Fryer Taco Stuffed Peppers-All New Take on Taco Tuesday

The classic stuffed pepper is fun to make, but instead of spending time steaming the peppers and roasting them in the oven, why not use an air fryer?? They come out nice and crisp and never soggy!

Instead of traditional stuffed peppers that are typically loads of tomato sauce, stuffed with beef, rice and lots of cheese, we decided to do a fun play on tacos.

Taco Stuffed Peppers

I’ve never really been a fan of stuffed peppers….but I am a fan of tacos! So, when we started brainstorming this recipe we knew we wanted to make a few changes:

1. Cut some calories! We use turkey instead of the typical ground beef. Plus, cut the rice. There is no need to bind together the meat.
2. Change up the flavor! It’s Taco Tuesday and we have this really craveable homemade taco seasoning that’s calling our names
3. Keep the pepper from getting soggy! To do this, we said, “Hello, Air Fryer”! The crunch isn’t that of a taco shell, but the pepper really holds up and maintains that bell pepper crunch. If you still want the “taco shell” vibes, serve the peppers with some corn chips and even some guacamole
4. Yes, we’re cutting calories, but it still has to be cheesy!

What’s in these Air Fried Taco Stuffed Peppers?

These peppers are stuffed with ground turkey, black beans, cream cheese and cheddar cheese. We use less cheddar cheese by substituting part of it with cream cheese. This gives the peppers a nice creamy texture with all the great cheddar cheese flavor.

It takes less than 20 minutes to make the peppers, and they can be made ahead of time and even frozen for future dinners.

How to Make the Taco Stuffed Peppers

Again, these Taco Stuffed Peppers are not like the classic peppers. This is a great way to change up a classic and cut the fat and boost the flavor. We used homemade Taco seasoning but store purchased taco seasoning can also be used.

Cooking the Ground Turkey and Black Beans

Place the ground turkey in a saute pan. Add the taco seasoning and the black beans and 1/2 cup of water. Cook over medium high heat until the turkey is done about 5 minutes. When the turkey is completely done, remove from heat and stir in the cheddar cheese and cream cheese. Let cool for a few minutes.

Preparing the Stuffed Peppers

While the turkey mixture is cooling prepare the bell peppers. We like to use colorful peppers not just a green pepper. Having a Yellow, Red, Orange and Green pepper combination makes it a fun dinner. Everyone gets to pick their favorite color of pepper!!

Cut the tops off the pepper. Just cut around the steam part. This will make it easy to remove the seeds. Try to cut out as much of the white part of the pepper as possible. Rinse the peppers with cool running water to remove the rest of the seeds.

Fill The peppers

Place 1/4 to 1/3 of the turkey mixture into each pepper. Place the peppers in the air fryer and cook for 9 to 10 minutes at 375 degrees.

Remove from the air fryer and sprinkle a 1/2 a tablespoon of cheddar cheese on top of the peppers. Place the peppers back into the air fryer for 2 to 3 more minutes until the cheese is melted.

Serve with corn chips and sprinkled chopped green onions and/or Cilantro/Parsley on top of the peppers.

How to make homemade corn chips

Slice corn tortillas into strips about 1/2 inch wide. Spray the tortilla strips with cooking spray. Sprinkle some salt on top of the corn chips. Place the tortilla strips in an air fryer. Fry at 400 degrees for 5 minutes.

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